During Feb. of each year, our nation reflects upon the lessons to be drawn from the history of Black Americans – our struggles, our progress and our contributions to the lives of our countrymen and women of every race, gender and creed.
Congressman Elijah Cummings
Black History Month this year comes at an especially poignant time. Barack and Michelle Obama have returned to private life, and a new President and First Lady have taken up the awesome responsibilities that the American Presidency entails.
Like most Americans, I am deeply grateful for the inspired, dignified and clear-headed leadership that President Obama exemplified during the last eight years.
He elevated the aspirations that we can have for our Presidents. Even more lasting in the context of our future history, he strengthened and gave tangible substance to the aspirations that progressive Americans, including Americans of Color, can reasonably envision for ourselves.
As citizens, we have been transformed by Barack Obama’s presidency, and, now, the strength and substance of this transformation must confront a different reality.
We will be thoroughly tested in the days and years ahead – a testing that we cannot afford to fail.
Despite failing to gain a majority of the popular votes in last year’s election, President Donald Trump appears determined to take our nation on a different and, in the main, less enlightened and less inclusive course.
Their numbers bolstered by gerrymandered districts and onerous voter id requirements, the Republican congressional majorities are now proposing to dismantle core pillars of the social and economic safety net – federal initiatives that have provided greater opportunity, social stability and a redeeming humanity to our individualistic, competitive society.
In the face of these threats, we must never forget, even for a day, that “We, the People” are the ultimate guarantors of our democracy.
It is in this context that Americans of every political persuasion should view with alarm any actions that threaten or seek to limit our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, especially our freedom at the ballot box and freedom of expression.
This is why we must reject “alternative facts” uttered without foundation from on high, and why we must fight to maintain the statutorily guaranteed right of federal employees to have unfettered access to congressional oversight.
As our Scriptures remind us, “we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.”
The truth that rose up from the hearts and minds of everyday people during the Enlightenment provided the foundation for our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The truth about the sin of slavery expanded those rights to the millions who sacrificed and suffered during the Middle Passage and our Civil War.
The truth to be found in the inner strength of every human spirit preserved our people and carried us ever forward during the repressive years of Jim Crow.
This same truth encouraged children to confront injustice at the school house door, lead the people of Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, convinced a President from Texas to stand up for civil rights, and required Dr. King to make the ultimate sacrifice.
All of this history is why, despite my own serious concerns about the period of reaction in which we now find ourselves, I continue to have faith in the inherent goodness and strength of purpose of a free people in a still free country.
During his Farewell Address, President Obama candidly acknowledged the very real threats to our democratic system that we must now confront and overcome. Yet, he also declared that he was even more optimistic about this country than when we began his journey to the presidency back in 2007.
Barack Obama is optimistic about our future because he trusts each of us to exercise the full measure of our citizenship. We, in turn, must have the same confidence in our own competence to persevere and prevail.
Our spirits should be strengthened by the millions of Americans who marched and raised their voices for progressive, democratic values on January 21 – and the millions more who raised their arms in solidarity from across our land and around the world.
During the Women’s March on Washington and in a myriad of other communities, history was speaking truth to power, the power of an enlightened people of every race and creed raising their eyes and arms in a collective allegiance to hope, determination and human rights.
The people of our great nation will not be silenced, whatever attacks or “alternative facts” may be advanced to discourage or deflect the people’s will.
Dr. King’s vision of a better America, and our own, will not easily be denied or set aside.
We, the People, will answer Barack Obama’s call to action – and our inner voice. In so doing, we will be creating a legacy that future generations will remember with gratitude and pride.
This, I believe, will be our part in the Black History of our time.
Congressman Elijah Cummings represents Maryland’s 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.